HP Pavilion G60

Introduction

There a number of slight revisions of this laptop. This guide will address them each in turn.

This page is just for discussing using Linux on the HP Pavilion G60. For a general discussion about this laptop you can visit the HP Pavilion G60 page on LapWik.

G60-125NR

This laptop was tested with Mandriva 2009.0 Power Pack for i586. Thank you to Richard Randall for this guide.

This guide is intended to provide you details on how well this laptop works with Linux and which modules you need to configure. For details on how to actually install and configure the required modules have a look at our guides section for distribution specific instructions.

Notes

Overall, an easy installation. The thing that I was most concerned about was the WiFi, but the Mandriva 2009.0 PowerPack DVD comes with a driver for the Atheros AR5009 chip set - so it worked first time (with NO tweaking). However, the WiFi ON/OFF Button (above the keyboard) does not change color when pressed (from orange [Off] to Blue [On]). The glide pad worked fine - even the scroll was recognized! The keyboard Functions (fn keys) appear to all work. The ONLY thing that I needed to adjust was the screen settings from the installation default to eliminate the stretch effect (under “Set up the graphical server” select “Graphic Card”, then select “Vendor”, “NVIDIA”, “GeForce 6100 and later”. THEN under “Set up the graphical server”, select “Monitor”, then select “Generic”, “Flat Panel 1360×768”. Leave the “Resolution” set to “Automatic”).

Regarding more advanced features, the motherboard and/or BIOS do not appear to support the AMD PowerNow! driver (for optimizing power consumption when operating on battery) - in any case, I wasn't able to get it to work. Consequently, I'm only getting a little over 1.5 hours of battery operation. I tried some different power management software tools, but any improvements were negligible. And as of 1/1/09, HP is not offering an extended battery for this model computer.

Notes

Both Fedora and Ubuntu allow for very easy installation. Tell them how you want the system to be laid out, press go, and make a sandwich.
Fedora: Detects hardware which requires further setup with proprietary drivers, but does not give the user an easy pointer to them or conduct an automated setup. This affects the webcam, wireless device and graphics card. Fortunately Fedora's popularity makes searches on the web for any graphics, media or device setup issues trivial and everything is workable with little fuss.
Ubuntu: Detects the same elements but goes the extra step to prompting the user to install proprietary drivers with a warning that they are not open source. Ubuntu Studio 9.04 installed a very smooth multimedia suite (peppered with ample warnings about groups which desire to ostracize their consumer base) which setup the webcam and ensured that all the media apps were talking through all the right codecs (no small feat, Ubuntu Studio can install ridiculously complete codec libraries).

Wireless setup under either requires a hard network connection to initiate download and installation of the complete wireless suite required. The default drivers and setup works well under Ubuntu, but some users find that range and connectivity is somewhat limited using Ubuntu's default wireless network utility (represented by a small icon on the menu bar). Other wireless session managers are available, but I did not find it necessary to go the extra step and manually install them. A slight improvement was observable between connectivity under 9.04 and 9.10 versions of Ubuntu. Wireless setup under Fedora also requires a network connection and was only slightly more involved, requiring root to add a repository which handles proprietary drivers (this information is readily available elsewhere).

The screen is 1366 pixels wide, not the standard 1360, which is a slight irritation. The solution to this, regardless of what graphics driver you are using, is to specify 1366 pixels. This will usually not be detected by default. Those 6 extra pixels cause annoying stretch effects that all users found distracting.

Graphics drivers from nVidia are available, but still seem to need some work. The generic display driver works well for most tasks and is much cleaner and error-free for office-type work than the nVidia drivers (both open source and proprietary ones). If you need graphics acceleration for games or rendering (i.e. playing Oblivion or World of Warcraft, the two games I tested) the nVidia driver Fedora guides the user to search for and Ubuntu simply prompts the user to install (with warning) works well with Wine and glitches are minimal (though some typical Wine-related minimap-type problems remain).

Laptops simply are not very difficult to configure under Linux any longer under most circumstances. Yay Linux.

G60-100EM

This laptop was tested with Ubuntu 9.04, 32 bit and 64 bit installation installed 25/4/09. Thanks to Iain Farrell for this section of the guide.

This guide is intended to provide you details on how well this laptop works with Linux and which modules you need to configure. For details on how to actually install and configure the required modules have a look at our guides section for distribution specific instructions.

Linux Compatibility

Device

Compatibility

Comments

Processor

Yes

Screen

Yes

HDD

Yes

Optical Drive

Yes

Graphics

Yes

See Notes below.

Sound

Yes

Ethernet

Yes

Wireless

Yes

56K Modem

Not Tested

USB

Yes

Card Reader

Yes

WebCam

Notes

Very easy install, works straight out of the box. Only update required was system update and reboot and then enabling of NVidia drivers. To access these go into System > Administration > Hardware drivers. The Recommended 180 drivers worked for me.

Author(s)

Hi everyone..My problem is that i had installing Ubuntu 10.10cleanjust Ubuntueverything works so good.Butwhats up with the webcam?and the wireless card? (atheros blabla…)I just cant find a solution (solutions doesnt have to be complicated, i mean code and codes and weird stuffs, a solution is a solution, im kinda tired of seeing so messy things

can the Atheros Wireless card of the HP G60 247CL work with Ubuntu?thanks for read

Prince, 2010/12/31 07:54

Please i have a very big problem with my laptop. i can't install my webcam please send me the setup for Hp Pavilion G60 as soon as posible

james baker, 2010/02/26 02:46

hi i have a hp g60 247cl and i just installed linux ubuntu v9.10 and i was wondering if there is a compatible web cam driver for this spacific version of linux or is there a better version suited for this laptop

benji, 2009/09/13 09:24

I'm running arch linux with nvidia drivers on this, and it is pretty much perfect - only real problem is with suspending to RAM - it wakes up to a back screen and a blinking cursor, and can no longer read/write the hard drive, so i have to doo a hard reboot. any one got any ideas?

dasdad, 2009/07/29 19:15

dasdasd

Chen Xiao-Long, 2009/07/05 13:42

I have an HP G60-247CL and I tested all the hardware on Ubuntu 9.04 (x64 and x86) and they all work except that the wireless drops its connection frequently (Artheros AR928X). It can be fixed by installing the linux-backports-modules-jaunty-generic and Wicd (there also seems to be a problem with Network-Manager). Also the wireless button flashes to the amount of internet traffic being used (sort of like the hard drive LED). I have no idea why but, it still works anyway. Hope this info helps!

Ken, 2009/06/04 07:03

I installed Ubuntu 9.04 on this HP G60 244DX Notebook. It worked out very well. All devices are working: Wireless, video, webcam, touchpad, etc. I was extremely pleased with it. A great machine in that it works so well with Ubuntu :)

Here are some notes I took to get it set up with dual boot Ubuntu/Vista:

Setting up Ubuntu 9.04 on HP G60 LaptopKen Zahorec2009-06-02

Wait!Do not start Windows.Do not power up the machine for the first time yet!

How to access the BIOS setup program in the HP G60 laptop:

Press and hold F10 key while power-up button has been activated.

While in the BIOS program, Change boot options in BIOS boot order to CD, USB, then Hard Drive.

Boot from CD or USB to backup the entire system disk drive:

Make a full system drive backup for emergency recovery purposes
Use a reliable external USB drive as target for full system drive backup
Using Ghost v11 for this (took ~2 hours)
Boot Ghost from CD or Boot Ghost from USB (either should work)
There are some other backup options available (TBD)

I seem to be having a problem with my Hp G60-126CA, whenever I try and run a live cd it just hangs. Never use to do that with ubuntu before. Anyway I am gonna try Mandriva and see what happens.

Ken, 2009/06/04 07:08

Are you using the 64 bit version?Have you tried the alternate media? Have you tried to use the i386 desktop live CD (32 bit)? I ask because I have had more success with 32 bit version–even on 64 bit processors.

Emanuel, 2009/02/12 06:18

Hello, I have an G60-120 laptop, where I can find the gnu/linux driver? wifi, webcam, and microphone doesn't work. I try to install the madwifi driver with module-assistant but don't have a solution. The sound work, but the microphone doesn't; and the webcam don't work yet, thanks.

Iain Farrell, 2009/04/26 18:15

You should now be able to use all of these features with 9.04 of Ubuntu.

arnold, 2009/01/18 20:49

I installed opensuse 11 on HP G60 100EM no WIFI support upon initial install, after downloading madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3875-20081105.tar.gz and a bit of compiling Wifi works. Im still trying to get the webcam to work.

many thanks,Arnold

Iain Farrell, 2009/01/26 15:55

Webcam seems to work for me on the 100EM in Skype but not in Cheese. Good luck :)